At an age when most girls are busy with school, homework and dates, Paula Cooper has a different routine. She sits locked in her prison cell 23 hours a day, waiting to die. Cooper is a teen-ager and a murderer. In May, 1985, when she was just 15, she stabbed an elderly Bible teacher 33 times with a butcher knife. The victim, according to testimony, recited the Lord's Prayer as she lay dying. Last summer, Cooper became the youngest female sentenced to death in the United States since 1892.

It may be time to retire the convenient comparisons to Joni and Laurie and Suzanne and Kate, because Jane Siberry's Beverly Theatre show on Friday was the work of a distinctive, and distinctly non-derivative, performer. Less novel but more assertive than she was at last year's Roxy show, the theatrical Canadian gave full rein to her quirks--oddly choreographed singer/dancers, muttered monologues, surreal lyric twists--but made those quirks more captivating than cloying.

Michele Sindona, a former Vatican financial adviser and convicted swindler, was declared clinically dead Friday as investigators tried to determine whether he was murdered or committed suicide with poison. Doctors at Voghera hospital, where the 65-year-old financier was taken Thursday after collapsing in his prison cell, said electroencephalogram monitors registered no brain activity during the night, meaning Sindona was clinically dead.

In response to "Watts Residents Go Public on Privatization," July 14: Privatization of public housing developments: Cui bono ? HUD requires that the housing authorities are run with the input of their residents. No resident council, no federal subsidies! Consequently, the poverty pimps in the housing authorities prop up a few "resident-leaders" to front as resident councils, keep the money coming and make political hay for (HUD Secretary) Jack Kemp and his ilk. These "elected resident leaders" do not understand the consequences of their own somnambulistic posturing any better than the poor people they supposedly represent.

A convicted kidnaper who has broken out of prisons and jails nine times was caught Sunday after he escaped from the federal penitentiary in Lompoc and led more than 400 officers on a 31-hour chase through thick fog and dense woods. Russell Hamilton was tracked through 15 miles of mountains and underbrush and found about 10 a.m. Sunday in an empty farmhouse northeast of the prison. "He has a doctor's degree on escapes," said prison warden Richard Rison.

Expelled from Congress a week ago, an unrepentant James A. Traficant Jr. on Tuesday was sentenced to eight years behind bars for corruption and made it clear he intends to run for reelection from his prison cell--and expects to win. The 61-year-old former House member was led to jail in handcuffs after the judge refused to let him remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction on charges of taking bribes and kickbacks.

Syracuse men's basketball Coach Jim Boeheim was probably already in a bad mood after his sixth-ranked team lost to Connecticut, 66-58, Wednesday night. But he got into an even worse mood at the post-game news conference when he was asked a question by ESPN reporter Andy Katz. Katz asked a question about the end of the rivalry between Syracuse and UConn when Boeheim let him have it. "I'll answer anybody's question but yours because you're an idiot and a disloyal person," Boeheim said.

Re "Children's Testimony in Case Assailed," July 26: I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this article! Are these lawyers serious? Can they possibly be that naive? The lawyers are worried about Marco Barrera's children having to deal with the ramifications of their testimony for the rest of their lives and wondering if the district attorney's office is going to pay for a lifetime of therapy that the kids are going to need because of testifying against their father. Excuse me, but aren't these children going to need a lifetime of therapy anyway, because of the brutal violence and daily beatings they experienced?